“In the field of persuasion, the ranking of power looks like this:

1. Identity always beats analogy.

2. Analogy always beats reason.

Trump spoke to our identity as Americans. Cruz spoke to an analogy of a TV show. Neither appealed to reason. Cruz wants to end this conversation, not engage in it. He can’t get into the weeds of his legal status without drawing more attention to it. And Trump already had the high ground by saying it could be a huge distraction as president. If you are Cruz, what do you do?

What you do is settle for a shark-jumping analogy and hope the world is paying attention to something else this week. Because that’s the only move available to you.”

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/136749788476/the-canadian-gambit-trump-persuasion-series